Comments on: Do bloggers devalue journalism?

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:39:29 +0000

Everyone is taught to write and we’re all allowed to express our views. It should be easy to tell what’s written by a journalist because it will be professionally written (we hope).

By: Paul Bradshaw

Paul Bradshaw — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:26:07 +0000

Matt – it’s the theme. Still casting around for a better one…

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:37:51 +0000

Blogging isn’t even a medium – it’s a format. That’s just a way to get information to people. Reporters gather information and report it. It doesn’t matter if it’s on paper, in a long-form narrative or in three paragraphs on a blog.

There are people blogging for very healthy salaries at the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and more, as well as bloggers doing great work such as those at the various Village Voice publications.

By: Matt Wardman

Matt Wardman — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:45:55 +0000

PS Where did all my blank lines between paragraphs go .

By: Matt Wardman

Matt Wardman — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:45:09 +0000

I think that the basic error is in trying to define “journalism” as a “profession”. The p word is being used as an alternative to “people who make a living from writing”.

J never has been a profession. There is nothing absolutely distinctive in the skillset, and qualifications for professions (even pseudo professions) are regulated legally.

God help us if Government approval was ever needed to be a journalist.

It sounds far too much like the NUJ “circle the wagons around the money” approach from a couple of years from the NUJ.

Having said that, Angela makes a lot of good points.

By: Paul Bradshaw

Paul Bradshaw — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:49:23 +0000

It annoys me as well – but I can’t change it sadly, as the blog switched to WordPress MU with Journal Local a few months back and that’s one of the cons to go with the pros. I could change the theme, though, so will keep looking for one that suits.

By: The Worst of Perth

The Worst of Perth — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:15:05 +0000

Paul, any chance of an extra point or two on the comment font size? I’ve broken my microscope.

By: The Worst of Perth

The Worst of Perth — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:02:57 +0000

And how quaintly touching it is that “baffled” journalists are still bleating about this literally years after everyone else concerned has moved on. I have to respond to Simon Gray’s “Does the relatively modern practice at weddings of disposable cameras being placed on tables at the reception devalue professional photography?” with Yes. It does devalue the monetary return of wedding photography, but photographers aren’t still whining about it in the way that journalists are. It’s how it is, so they have found different ways to make it pay. Jounalists complaining about bloggers is as pointless as pro photographers complaing about digital cameras, something they stopped doing more than a decade ago.
And to Ben Mazzotta’s “The best columns in journalism are a classic positional good: their worth is determined by how much better they are than their competitors.” I’d say, well yes, but that’s the whole problem. The paid ones aren’t any better than too many of the unpaid. Worse in too many cases.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:53:46 +0000

There’s a problem with this sentence…

“Now this is fine if you’re just running your own site in your spare time, but the media is always going to suffer if journalists don’t demand fair pay for doing real stories”

I’m not sure if all journalists are doing ‘real stories’ anymore. Oftentimes the newspapers I read are a day or two behind blogs, or completely miss [important] stories I see on niche blogs.

Loads of journalist are doing stories on the latest government/official press release or straight stories on the new local council ‘initiative’, not ‘real stories’.

While the journalist will do the straight story, the blogger will post on why it’s stupid, a waste of money and link to evidence of where it has been tried previously.

And I say this as a journalist.

By: Annette Rubery

Annette Rubery — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:19:19 +0000

Very interesting points, Paul. I have to say (as both a journalist and a blogger) that the problems arise when two separate worlds collide. Journalism is a hard-nosed commercial undertaking; blogging is very often focused on helping the community or sharing ideas and making links between like-minded individuals. It’s when the latter content (often created as a labour of love) is made available to an organisation who will then sell it commercially (usually with the empty promise of ‘great exposure’) that the problems start. The blogger is often given little or nothing in return (in some cases not even a byline) and journalists find themselves replaced by free content. This is a no-win situation for everybody except the commercial organisation; we won’t solve this problem until bloggers stop being impressed by ‘the media’ and learn to value their own content and the environment in which it was created.